Essendon coach Matthew Knights must be privately fuming. No one, it seems, wants to claim the final spot in the top-eight – most of all the Bombers who, at this stage, should have their position in September safe.
Instead, they are 8-10, after losing consecutive matches to Richmond and West Coast.
Don’t forget, either, that the Bombers also lost to North Melbourne in Round 4 this year – which makes it three losses against teams in the competition’s bottom-five.
Yep, they have fluffed a golden opportunity. Had they won those two matches, the Bombers would be a game clear in the top-eight and headed for September.
The Bombers will now be on holiday in September.
Given Essendon’s current form, it will be lucky to win another game this season.
The Bombers face top-four contender Brisbane this weekend, followed by St.Kilda, Fremantle (in Perth) and Hawthorn.
In 2007, the year Kevin Sheedy was sacked, Essendon finished with a 10-12 win-loss record.
After talks of a pay-rise and long-term contract earlier in the year, is Knights the man to take this team forward?
The final month of the season will tell us plenty, because if a team cannot show considerable improvement after dropping two very winnable games – and important games – then there is a breakdown in communication.
Granted, the Bombers were without Matthew Lloyd, Jason Winderlich (perhaps the team’s best player this season), Alwyn Davey and Mark McVeigh last Sunday.
However, the Eagles also missed Dean Cox and Daniel Kerr.
Is Essendon’s run-and-gun gameplan become too predictable? It never got going against the Eagles on the wide expanses of Subiaco Oval.
Just a week earlier, the Tigers clogged the corridor and, had it not been for Essendon’s admirable last-ditch bid for victory in the final five minutes, Richmond would have won easily.
Simply, if the Essendon players have found themselves making shoddy decisions against two of the competition’s supposed “easy beats”, what is going to happen against the slick Saints in Round 20?
The Saints embarrassed the Bombers in the final Round of last season.
Mark McVeigh told his players, after the game, to remember the pain associated with such a poor performance and use it to aim higher in 2009.
The next month will tell us if his words had any effect on this young group – and it will tell us if Knights has the ability to get this group to respond when so much is at stake.
Remarkably, the Bombers are still a mathematical chance of making the finals. But only mathematically.